Alue42

joined 5 months ago
[–] Alue42@fedia.io 1 points 19 hours ago

Exactly what ArchRecord said. The main things for federal are Medicare, Social Security, and some disability (other disability is state). Other than that, there are so many federal programs that are such small percentages. Why do you think Congress takes over a year to approve the budget every year? NPR and PBS combined cost less than $7 per taxpayer per year, whereas military spending costs on average over $5000 per taxpayer per year (depending on income, and spread out over each paycheck). National forests cost the average tax payer $28 per year.

Do you know how many programs there are in the federal system? And then also in each individual state system? That paystub would be impossible, and as ArchRecord pointed out, out, it would be listed as 0.0000x% $0.000x for each stub, not yearly. But you can look up the federal budget and state budget and see what each of these programs cost and what they are for each tax bracket.

[–] Alue42@fedia.io 20 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Your paystub (in the US) should state how exactly much is going to Medicare, unemployment, social security, disability, and general state and federal income for various programs (highway repair, workforce development, etc depending how your state uses income tax). If this is not on each of your paystubs, speak to your payroll department.

[–] Alue42@fedia.io 36 points 4 weeks ago

I find this to be a breakdown of training, because the training was pretty clear years ago when I had clearance with the navy that we were never to use apps like this that could disclose location, not just while on-duty or on base, but at any time that our location could be given away. We were specifically not allowed to have Fitbits or other smart watches (Fitbit was the big one at the time) that could share location and any apps that wanted to know our location (yes, on our personal phones) needed to be cleared by IT because we were people that had been granted clearance and therefore could not give away critical location information.

The big scandal that got a lot of people into trouble was Pokemon Go, because not only did it use location, but I guess it used camera too? I didn't know, I didn't play it, but using cameras on base was a HUGE no-no, so using an app that shared location AND picture during your lunch break broke the brains of the COs.

It seems so weird to me that this is something that is so widespread right now. I didn't work for the navy anymore and haven't in a while, but I still follow the basic safety protocols about not sharing sensitive information.

[–] Alue42@fedia.io 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

As someone else mentioned, you probably hit snooze without realizing it while still mostly asleep. Snooze is 9 minutes. On this clock, the "snooze button" is literally the entire face of the clock. When the noise initially went off, if you rolled over and tapped the clock it would have reset the alarm.

[–] Alue42@fedia.io 3 points 3 months ago (4 children)

I have this exact same clock. Are you positive it's not going off? You may have it set to be quiet in the beginning and ramp up to being loud over 15-30 minutes which is supposed to wake you up gradually. So perhaps you only noticed it going off at 10:46.

For instance, I want to be awake at 7, so I set mine for 6:30 with a 30min gradual wake up (sounds and light gradually go up for 30 min).

That setting is not required and you can have it just wake you up, but then it defeats the point of a sunlight alarm in my opinion.

[–] Alue42@fedia.io 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Here's a taste of the GOP view:

I used to be a government employee in the state of Florida (when Rick Scott was governor) as an environmental educator. One day, we received a memo that for all government employees the phrases "climate change", "global warming", and "sustainability" were now banned from our official duties. How was I supposed to teach about the environment in Florida without using those? I was still allowed to say "unusual weather event".

I left this role, and Florida, and heard that this policy had been repealed.

Wouldn't you know it, I heard from some of my colleagues still there that DeSantis just went ahead and did the same thing, while also making sure the new law impacts the energy grid.

So not only is their plan to ignore it - but they want to force no one else to talk about it either, or make any improvements on their own of their own volition.

[–] Alue42@fedia.io 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Sure you have some aspect of faith (I wasn't there, can't 100% confirm the authenticity of the footage myself), but it's clearly based on quite a solid piece of evidence.

Except that you don't need to have "faith" that this happened, you are able to verify it yourself!! There were reflectors left on the moon that you can shine a significantly strong laser to and have it reflected back if you have a sensor that can pick it back up.

THAT is the point of peer review. To prove that the results in the experiments are reproducible by those using the same equipment, and that faith isn't a requirement - that anyone can verify it and reproduce it.

How would those man-made reflectors have gotten there if not for man going to the moon and placing them there?

[–] Alue42@fedia.io 5 points 5 months ago

Precisely. When there was a 10mph speed reduction for commercial vessels recommended in order to protect whales from vessels strikes (the actual cause of the deaths) and Congress had to hear arguments from various sides - suddenly all these people cared about was how much this was going to ruin their industry and they didn't care at all that it was to protect whales.

[–] Alue42@fedia.io 2 points 5 months ago

Seems correctable with directional mics